Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Qi Yanyu didn’t return to the dorm with them. Instead, he bought himself a bottle of grape soda as a reward.

When he got back to the dorm, as expected, Qi Yuanhan immediately started making sarcastic remarks about him.

For example: "If I were as shameless as you, I’d have quit by now."

Qi Yanyu, however, was in a surprisingly good mood. He felt quite pleased—having gotten back at Gu Jinglan, who failed to properly guide his fans and let them disturb his sleep. For the first time as the dorm pariah, he felt happy.

"Why did you waste our time? Can’t even do the moves right, no common sense..." Seeing that Qi Yanyu ignored him, Qi Yuanhan thought he was unfazed, which only fueled his anger, leading to a tirade.

"Aren’t we supposed to be a united dormitory? Shouldn’t you help me more if I’m struggling?" Qi Yanyu spoke calmly for the first time, offering a friendly smile.

"Are you brain-dead? How can we teach you? It’s so simple, yet you still can’t do it—are you doing this on purpose?" Qi Yuanhan fired off five or six rhetorical questions, clearly fuming.

"Gu Jinglan is the Student Council President, right? Shouldn’t he help a fellow student in need?" Qi Yanyu circled back, calling out Gu Jinglan by name.

Gu Jinglan smirked coldly. "Help you? How?" He knew this guy was holding a grudge over the morning incident and found him petty.

"I’m here to learn humbly. If I’m struggling in life and studies, how can President Gu just pile on when I’m struggling? How did you even become President? By looks? Or just votes from your fanbase?" The personal attacks on appearance and competence began.

Looking at Qi Yanyu’s fake smile, Gu Jinglan understood what a petty, spiteful person looked like.

"Your ‘quality’ makes you dead weight..." Gu Jinglan shot back with just that one question.

Huang Shaoze, fearing things would escalate into a fight—which would inevitably turn into a two-against-one with Qi Yuanhan joining Gu Jinglan—hurriedly mediated. "Qi, of course we’ll help you. Don’t be angry. Gu isn’t like that..."

Qi Yuanhan wanted to jump into the argument, but right at 11 p.m., the dorm lights went out as scheduled. Coincidentally, the counselor called Qi Yuanhan at that exact moment. Thinking Qi Yanyu had ratted him out, Qi Yuanhan was about to add fuel to the fire when he realized it was actually a senior complaining about his noisy gaming.

The dorm fell into darkness, with only the desk lamp Huang Shaoze quickly turned on providing light.

Huang Shaoze, always playing mediator, took it upon himself to comfort both Qi Yanyu and Gu Jinglan.

By midnight, Huang Shaoze was still in the darkened dorm, on a tutoring call. Eventually, Qi Yuanhan returned, loudly cursing the senior who complained, forcing Huang Shaoze to move his tutoring session to the hallway.

Qi Yuanhan marched into the hallway, furiously sending voice messages in the group chat to argue with the person who reported him.

Meanwhile, Qi Yanyu was washing up, leaving the door open when Gu Jinglan walked in.

Gu Jinglan stood nearby, casually mocking him. "What’s the point of all this? You’re just embarrassing yourself." He was referring to Qi Yanyu’s childish payback.

With the power out, the only light came from an iPhone placed upside down by the sink, set to flashlight mode.

The background was dim and shadowy, with only faint, flickering shadows casting ghostly silhouettes on their faces.

Qi Yanyu replied leisurely, his tone ambiguous—whether amused or mocking. "If you don’t want to be in the same group as me, switch classes. Or apply for a dorm change."

Gu Jinglan felt that helping Qi Yanyu with his asthma earlier had been a waste—this guy was nothing but an ungrateful jerk.

And immature. So he blew him off.

On Sunday, Qi Yanyu went home and returned in the evening. The others assumed he wouldn’t show up for the rehearsal on the football field.

Since this was a competition, Wang Mingchen—who knew Gu Jinglan practiced taekwondo—had also noticed Qi Yanyu put it down as a skill in his freshman profile.

So, he assigned both of them to perform a taekwondo demonstration before the warm-up routine, to score some extra points.

Qi Yanyu just stared.

Class President Wang Mingchen thought this new segment was the icing on the cake—couldn’t be better: "Any objections?"

Gu Jinglan had no desire to go through the motions with the Crown Prince: "Unnecessary. It’d be out of place."

"It's just a mock fight. Not a real one. Don’t you have those prearranged drills? Go practice them together." Wang Mingchen mainly wanted to leverage Gu Jinglan’s looks to win over judges and student votes. Qi Yanyu was one of the few sharp-looking guys among them who also happened to know taekwondo. So he had the two good-looking ones put on a little show before the class exercises.

Thus, while the rest of the class did their exercises on the running track of the football field, the two of them practiced their prearranged drills alone by the grassy area notoriously called the "cornfield" where couples often hooked up in secret.

Not a word passed between them—just mutual disdain.

"Hurry up, or we’ll miss curfew," Gu Jinglan said, still haunted by the Crown Prince’s tendency to drag things out until the last minute the day before. Weekend curfew was 11 PM; weekdays, 10.

Whatever. Let’s go.

Instead of kicking his opponent down, Qi Yanyu found himself flipped onto the ground by a sudden leg sweep. Gu Jinglan’s eyes flashed with surprise and amusement.

Gu Jinglan was still standing at this point, but when Qi Yanyu tried to scramble up, Gu Jinglan dodged and hauled him down by his collar. As Qi Yanyu tried to scramble up, Gu Jinglan didn’t let him off so easily—grabbing the hand that tried to twist free, pinning him with a knee on his abdomen, his own weight pressing against Qi Yanyu’s ribs, while wrenching his arm into a submission hold. "Standard jiu-jitsu move. Thank you, moderators, nothing inappropriate happened here."

Qi Yanyu was pinned so thoroughly he couldn’t even roll over. Taekwondo only allowed strikes to the head, abdomen, and sides of the body—anything below the waist was strictly prohibited. What kind of taekwondo was Gu Jinglan even practicing?

Who knew what mix of styles Gu Jinglan had picked up—Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Japanese judo, or some other combat technique—but he was using all of it on Qi Yanyu now.

"What the hell kind of taekwondo is this?" Qi Yanyu struggled free, only for the two of them to tumble together, Gu Jinglan’s legs locking around him like a boa, leaving him helpless under the weight of someone over 187 cm tall.

With that strikingly handsome face inches from his own, close enough to hear each other’s ragged breaths, Gu Jinglan murmured, "Standard jiu-jitsu move. Thank you, moderators, nothing inappropriate happened here."

At this proximity, Qi Yanyu finally understood why Gu Jinglan had so many fans.

During the freshman orientation, Gu Jinglan had represented the top students in a speech. Every semester, whether at the medical university’s opening or closing ceremonies, he spoke as a student representative or the Student President—always in a suit, black hair, flawless features, icy demeanor. His looks had caused such a stir that both faculty and students knew him by reputation. Even now, the school’s admissions page still featured plenty of his photos.

Gu Jinglan—cold and beautiful.

Now, he looked down at the man trapped beneath him, panting slightly, unable to resist a quiet sneer. "How pathetic."

"Didn’t you realize how impractical taekwondo is when you learned it?"

Qi Yanyu knew Gu Jinglan was absolutely working in some payback here. But no matter how he struggled, he couldn’t break free from the hold. "You bastard! Stop using back-alley brawling—what kind of taekwondo is this?!"

Ignoring the insult, Gu Jinglan continued, "Ah, all flashy moves and no go," his tone lightly mocking. "Pretty but useless?"

This only deepened Qi Yanyu’s humiliation. His hairline was slightly exposed, his face bathed in stadium-light gold under the faint glow of the lights, stark against the dark, ink-like shadows of the grass.

Gu Jinglan had him completely locked down—upper body pressing into his abdomen, legs immobilized in a tight grapple. "Standard taekwondo and jiu-jitsu sparring. Thank you, moderators, nothing inappropriate happened here."

While the rest of the class slogged through their dull exercises, these two were rolling around in the "cornfield" like they were fighting for their lives.

"Can’t you put in a little more effort?" the Student President said, voice low and dripping with disdain.

Provoked, veins bulged in Qi Yanyu’s pale neck, his face flushed, teeth clenched.

Trapped like prey in a python’s grip, Qi Yanyu couldn’t even flip over.

"Not so tough now, are you?" Gu Jinglan remarked breezily, a smirk playing on his lips as he watched.

Being a doctor required stamina. Gu Jinglan, naturally gifted and no stranger to hard training, especially since his goal was to become a surgeon.

"What kind of taekwondo is this?"

"As long as the moves look good, why do you care so much?"

"This doesn’t count! You’re not even doing taekwondo!" His tone was downright belligerent, but anyone listening would know the truly unreasonable one was Gu Jinglan.

"So you admit defeat?"

"Jesus, get off me!" Qi Yanyu had lost in action but not in words.

"Do you yield?" Ignoring him, Gu Jinglan asked again with a light laugh.

"One more round!" Qi Yanyu tried to mask his embarrassment, with bits of grass stuck to his face. 【Normal taekwondo/jujitsu sparring, thank you moderators, nothing inappropriate occurred.】

Another round began, and Qi Yanyu attempted to grab Gu Jinglan and trip him. But the latter was a skilled grappler. Once again, he mounted his opponent’s torso, knees locking the other’s body in place.

Qi Yanyu looked like an overdressed geisha, helplessly pinned to the ground with no chance of rising.

There was a move in Brazilian jiu-jitsu—the side mount—where one leg lifts and presses close to the opponent’s lower abdomen, a position ideal for setting up an armbar or transitioning to the back for a rear-naked choke. 【Normal jujitsu terminology, standard sparring techniques, thank you moderators, nothing inappropriate occurred.】

Pressed beneath Gu Jinglan, who even grinded his knee into him, Qi Yanyu went rigid for a moment.

At first, it was unclear whether it was accidental or deliberate. But seeing Qi Yanyu’s flustered expression and confused frown, Gu Jinglan understood—this guy was gay.

A normal person wouldn’t make that face of shameful pleasure.